Email marketing is one of the most proven, reliable digital marketing tactics. Having been in existence since the earliest days of the internet, there are few companies that don’t include email as part of

]]>

Email marketing is one of the most proven, reliable digital marketing tactics. Having been in existence since the earliest days of the internet, there are few companies that don’t include email as part of their marketing strategy. But just because email marketing is ubiquitous, does not mean it’s universally well-executed.

In fact, without effective management and regular oversight, many email marketing campaigns are left to languish, and the results they generate gradually dwindle. If your email marketing campaigns aren’t performing, it’s less likely to be a failing of the channel itself and more likely to be a result of missed opportunities for optimization.

Below we cover some of the biggest mistakes companies make when it comes to managing and executing their email marketing campaigns.

1 - An absence of goals

It’s true of all digital marketing campaigns that setting proper goals is the essential first step to success. Old, legacy campaigns like email marketing are often the least likely to have specific goals attached to them. As campaigns and responsibilities are handed off from one manager to the next it’s easy to lose sight of overarching goals and fall into a pattern of coasting.

What’s important about email marketing goals is that they be informed by business objectives. For example, getting higher email click-through rates is not a meaningful goal. Absent context it’s practically useless.

However, let’s say your business is keen to acquire more repeat customers. A goal that contributes to this objective may be to send more repeat traffic to the website (with the ultimate goal of getting them to convert). In that case, higher email click-through rates from existing customers would indicate progress toward the goal.

If you haven’t set clear, measurable goals for your email campaigns, the first step is to take some time to reassess. Even if you did set goals some time ago, it’s worthwhile to evaluate whether they’re still relevant.

2 - Improper list segmentation

List segmentation is one of the most critical factors in determining email marketing success. The days of “spray and pray” are long behind us. Nobody wants to receive a promotional email that’s totally irrelevant to their needs and interests, which is what makes proper segmentation so important.

Increasingly, users expect the marketing messages they receive to be personalized and relevant to them. Because of the sophistication of segmentation options, email marketing is one of the channels in which the challenge of personalization is most easily accomplished. It’s essential to spend time maintaining and optimizing your distribution lists. Also, be sure to account for extra creative time to write and design different emails to appeal to unique segments of your list.

3 - An unstructured distribution schedule

Nearly as bad as mailing to a giant list indiscriminately… is maintaining a mailing schedule that isn’t strategically implemented. As with all elements of your email marketing campaigns, distribution times should be tested and optimized. Don’t send an email because you feel like it, send one because you have something to say and you have reason to believe it’s a good moment to say it.

Though there are some general rules of thumb you can follow, the most successful distribution schedule for each brand is entirely personal. That’s what makes testing a must. Day of the week, time of day, and mailing frequency can all significantly impact your ability to capture audience attention. Test each of these variables to ensure you’re making the most of every email you send out.

4 - Boring content

There’s more than enough content on the internet right now to keep all of us endlessly entertained and informed. In the inbox you’re competing for attention with work and personal emails, not to mention promotional content from other brands. You’re also trying to capture the attention of an innately distracted audience that bounces back and forth between apps and platforms all day. That means that in order for your email content to get noticed, the one thing it absolutely cannot be is boring.

The key here is that there’s more to email marketing than just the email itself. There has to be something worth emailing about, and this necessitates creating high quality brand content. “Not boring” (aka, interesting) content can take a number of different forms depending on the target audience. For a clothing brand it might be highlighting a particular trend and offering tips on how to style it. For a B2B business it could involve promoting a new case study or original research paper.

Email body content is crucial, but don’t forget that no one will open the email in the first place if the subject line doesn’t sell it. All in all, email content must be designed to appeal to users’ needs and interests, and it must be engaging enough to make them feel it warrants their time.

5 - Missing CTAs and mismatched intent

Every effective email has a call-to-action (CTA). Without it the user has no direction about what to do next and the odds of them taking the action you wanted are slim to none. To get a user to act, your email needs to tell them exactly what to do. That’s the job of a CTA.

But having a CTA in your email is only the first step. Crafting a CTA that’s enticing and that correctly sets the user’s expectations about what will happen when they click on it is the goal to aim for.

What do we mean by setting user expectations? Everything about the email itself, and the CTA in particular, should prime the user for what will come next. For example, if the email is promoting a sale and the CTA reads “SHOP SALE” but the user is directed to the homepage when clicking on it, there’s a mismatch between expectations and outcome. Similarly, if the email promotes a sale but the CTA reads “WHAT’S NEW”, you’ve created ambiguity that can be off-putting to users.

Takeaways

Email marketing is a tried and tested tactic, but many businesses still struggle to make it return results for them. By correcting a handful of relatively simple mistakes and oversights you can improve your email marketing initiatives to generate stronger returns at lower costs.

]]>https://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/whats-making-your-email-marketing-ineffective/feed/0The Rise of 5Ghttps://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/the-rise-of-5g/
https://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/the-rise-of-5g/#commentsMon, 12 Feb 2018 16:34:52 +0000https://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/?p=25785The past few years we’ve seen an increased speculation and interest in the rise of 5G and it looks like 2018 will be the year that this technology becomes reality.]]>

The past few years we’ve seen an increased speculation and interest in the rise of 5G and it looks like 2018 will be the year that this technology becomes reality.

AT&T announced that they would introduce mobile 5G to a dozen select markets by the end of 2018. Meanwhile, Verizon, is partnering with Samsung to introduce fixed 5G to a handful of cities in the second half of this year, beginning with Sacramento, CA. Other carriers, like Sprint and T-Mobile are making plans of their own, promising to bring 5G to mobile in 2019 and 2020. 5G wireless service has even been included as an infrastructure priority in a national security report published by The White House.

It’s clear that 5G is a priority for many parties, including the U.S. government, and the service providers hoping to harness the technology to outpace the competition. Wondering what all the hype is about? Below we break down the promise of 5G and get into the implications this technology will have for the future of digital.

What is 5G?

5G is the fifth generation of cellular technology (the “G” in 3G, 4G, 5G, etc. stands for generation), following the 4G standard that rolled out back in 2011.

A formal standard was established in December 2017 which laid out the specifications for 5G. In short, 5G will outperform the current 4G and 4G LTE standards when it comes to download and upload speeds by up to 100 times. 5G will also reduce the latency problems (delays in processing data that lead to lagging connections) that exist in current networks. The result will be a faster and more reliable mobile connectivity which powers the next wave of technological advances.

What are the implications of the rise of 5G?

Faster speeds are, of course, desirable alone, but 5G will have more meaningful and far-reaching implications for consumers and businesses than just speed.

Autonomous Cars & IoT

The roll out of 5G will allow autonomous cars to become more efficient, safer, and more enjoyable. 5G’s low latency will enable autonomous cars to remain in close and constant contact with other connected devices (ie; other autonomous cars, and smart city infrastructure such as traffic lights), not to mention the ability to stream endless entertainment wherever your vehicle takes you.

The increased number of connected devices that we’re currently experiencing puts a strain on the existing 4G LTE networks. 5G will help make the IoT faster and more efficient because it allows for a quicker transfer of large volumes of data produced by the vast amount of connected devices. Because bogging down the network will no longer be a concern, it will be possible to have even more devices connected at once without sacrificing performance. Better overall performance will help drive even greater adoption of connected devices.

Mobile Innovation

Faster mobile internet will also lead to a boon in mobile innovation because 5G will enable technological leaps in terms of what’s possible from a mobile perspective. This means higher quality augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) experiences, as well as the introduction of other unimagined mobile experiences which can’t be sufficiently supported on the current 4G technology.

Current smartphones can’t run on 5G, but as 5G service is gradually rolled out over the course of the next two years we can expect to see compatible devices begin to hit the market. In fact, ZTE has already announced that they plan to bring a 5G phone to market at the end of this year or early in 2019.

5G will also help alleviate the current strain on the 4G infrastructure, which won’t be able to support the weight of an increasingly mobile-connected population. It will also make peak time connection issues a thing of the past, which means no more interrupted communication during busy times of day or at crowded events.

Home Internet

Fixed 5G is predicted to see broader initial roll out than mobile 5G, which means at-home internet access will experience the benefits of 5G first. Other than fast speeds and low latency, a major selling point of 5G is that it doesn’t require massive investment in new infrastructure the way installing fiber optic cables does. 5G home internet will be truly wireless, connecting consumers to the internet via a router that receives signals wirelessly from their service provider.

The Future of 5G

After years of speculation and much anticipation in the tech community, 5G is expected to begin making an appearance by the end of this year. Some of the implications of the rise of 5G, like benefits to autonomous cars, connected devices, and improved mobile experiences, are recognizable. In the long term, however, 5G technology will help usher in a new era of digital innovation, powering many changes and ideas that we can’t yet conceive.

It’s clear to see that customized products are having a moment in today’s retail industry. Wherever you turn, it seems retailers are clamoring for opportunities to give their customers a hand in personalizing their purchases.

For example, Monogramming is an add-on service that’s being increasingly offered by retailers like J. Crew, Madewell, Cuyana and West Elm. Ray-Ban offers the customization of their shades through customers selecting from dozens of color combinations and personalized engraving options. Other retail disruptors like Indochino, have made tailored suits available to a broader audience by offering custom-built suits that are delivered within 3 weeks and cost under $500.

The beauty industry has also begun to offer personalized products. Form Beauty, for instance, surveys customers on their hair health and habits to offer them a customized hair regimen. Keeps, a new hair loss prevention program, also provides custom hair regimens to men. Fenty Beauty, Rhianna’s recently launched beauty line, was welcomed with the hype surrounding its offering of a large range of shades to better match consumers skin tones.

Across the retail industry, you’ll see this same mania with customized products which plays into a much larger trend of personalization that has been driving digital brand strategies over the past few years. Feeding the demand for customized products is one thing, but feeding the demand for instant gratification takes it to the next level. Nike and Vans are both exploring ways to operate at the intersection of those two things – offering high-level customization at rapid turnaround times.

Nike By You

Nike By You is offering a high-tech custom retail experience to select customers (by invitation only at present) at its Makers’ Studio in Manhattan. At the studio, customers slip into a pair of white sneakers and begin the customization process through a projected design. They can indicate preferences through voice commands and their customizations are displayed on the blank shoe through the use of augmented reality technologies.

This technique allows for consumers to experience how the shoe will look on their feet before committing to a final design. Once the designer is satisfied with their creation, the shoe goes into production and within a remarkable 60 minutes or less they’ll have their finalized product.

Nike By You brings the best that retail has to offer to the in-person brand experience. At a time when brick-and-mortar retailers are struggling to find ways to bring consumers into stores, Nike proves that incorporating technology into the in-store experience in innovative ways has the potential to lure shoppers back to traditional retail.

Nike, which opened an immersive retail experience in SoHo in 2016 and has long offered custom Nike ID sneakers, is clearly a retail pioneer. This most recent venture into high tech customization is a move other retailers would be wise to watch.

Vans

The Vans heritage is one that has been on the idea of customization from the earliest days of the brand. On the Vans website, the brand boasts they’ve been doing custom design “Since before that was a thing,” noting that “Vans Customs has been a tradition since 1966 when Paul Van Doren made shoes with any fabric people brought to the shop.”

The customization process available on the website is already pretty advanced. Every element of the shoe can be tweaked in different materials, colors, and patterns. Users can even upload their own art to the site to have it printed on their shoes. The logical next step? Making custom Vans available in a mere 15 minutes.

This idea of instantaneous customization is behind the company’s Waffle Works Innovation Studio, which transforms any graphic into a custom-printed shoe in 15 minutes. A specialized printer brings the shoes to life, transferring the graphic to the shoe using a proprietary machine.

The technology isn’t available to the public yet and has so far been limited to press from tech blogs and sneaker aficionado sites.

Still, Vans’ commitment to enhancing the experience of customization is evident from the time and effort the brand has dedicated to developing the technology required to bring 15-minute personalized sneakers to life. It’s clear that this type of customization service has the potential to be a major draw to stores and Vans-sponsored events once it’s ready to roll out to the general public.

The Future Of Customization

Sneaker brands have long been in on the customization game, but Nike and Vans, in particular, are upping the ante by offering new ways to personalize products in time spans short enough to give consumers what they really crave: instant gratification.

Both brands are using innovative technology to enhance the consumer experience, and it won’t be long before we see these improved customization capabilities popping up in retail stores. Additionally, it’s likely that these innovations in customized products in real time will cause a ripple effect in the retail industry as a whole.

It's the time of year when brands pause to take analyze the successes the past twelve months have brought and begin looking to the future for new ways to hone their digital strategies. Planning

]]>

It's the time of year when brands pause to take analyze the successes the past twelve months have brought and begin looking to the future for new ways to hone their digital strategies. Planning effectively for the future means having clear insight into the technologies, behaviors, and consumer expectations that will define the coming year.

Below we dive into four digital trends that will have a big impact on the digital sphere in 2018.

Voice Search; A Force To Be Reckoned With

2017 was the year that the importance and influence of conversational interfaces crystallized. The pace of adoption of connected speakers like the Amazon Echo and Google Home was impressive in 2017 and shows no signs of slowing down in the year to come. Data published by eMarketer estimates that 24.5 million connected speakers will ship by the end of the year and pegs the U.S. household penetration at 13.8% by the end of 2018. Adoption of connected speakers means that a growing number of U.S. households are being introduced to the voice assistants that power these devices.

Voice assistants and chatbots are poised to have a significant impact on the way users engage with information on the web. From purely search perspective, voice assistants mean that (ideally) users are presented with a single correct answer to their query, eliminating the plethora of options presented via text-based search. Content marketers will have to start adapting their strategies to focus on this new way of searching if they hope to compete in an increasingly voice-driven landscape.

From a commerce perspective, connected devices also put greater pressure on retailers to reduce friction in the path to purchase. The more consumers shop via conversational commerce, the more they will become accustomed to expect machines to do the work of sorting, sifting, and selecting products for them based on their specifications.

Video Is Essential

By now most brands are aware that the state of digital marketing is something of a content arms race. Creating quality content is absolutely essential in order to succeed in digital, but churning out the same content is almost as bad as doing nothing at all. The truth is that a multimedia approach to content is necessary if a brand’s content is going to stand out from the competition. Videos are a core element of that multimedia strategy.

Time spent viewing videos on digital devices is growing every year, and is projected to be 1:22 per day on average in 2018 (eMarketer). For younger generations, digital video viewership is the norm, with 90% of millennials watching digital videos at least once per month. A handful of social feature launches -- Facebook Live and Instagram Stories -- in the past year have helped hasten a proliferation of video content.

All of this signals a demand for quality video content and an increased opportunity for video advertising. In fact, eMarketer estimates that video ad spending will reach $15.2 billion in 2018 -- an increase of roughly 16.5% from 2017. In 2018 many brands will be looking for opportunities both to create more engaging and authentic video content and to incorporate video as part of their advertising strategies.

Augmented Reality Is On The Rise

Augmented reality became a hot topic with the runaway success of Pokémon GO, which launched in summer 2016. The technology and its applications are far from frivolous though, even if they are often entertaining. The rapid mobile adoption of the past decade has paved the way to making AR accessible to a majority of the population, and that puts brands in the position of taking advantage of AR to connect with consumers in new ways.

2017 saw the launch of a handful of high-profile AR projects and collaborations. In September Swedish homewares giant, IKEA, launched IKEA Place. IKEA Place is an AR app built on Apple’s ARKit, a framework that allows developers to build augmented reality apps for iPhone and iPad. With IKEA Place consumers can see how furniture and home decor will look in their home by selecting a product and holding up their phone to their surroundings.

Apple’s ARKit and Google’s ARcore are making it easier for developers to bring augmented reality apps to the market. This will lead to an increase in the number of AR apps available and encourage user experimentation with the technology. In 2018 brands should be looking for opportunities to use AR to improve customer experience in meaningful ways.

Personalization Is Key

Personalization is not a new trend by any means. It’s been mentioned as a dominant digital marketing trend for several years now. And it’s no wonder why -- according to survey data published by eMarketer, between 36% of marketers say personalization gives them a 1-10% sales lift, and 30% say they’ve seen lift between 10-20%.

Despite the fact that personalization is the word out of every marketer’s lips, and that the evidence supports its positive impacts on sales, the majority of brands have yet to nail their personalization strategy, or even begin devising one in some cases. According to eMarketer, only 6% of marketers claim that their personalization initiatives are “advanced”, versus 56% who say theirs are “in process”, 28% who are just starting out, and 10% who are doing nothing at all.

Personalization has already become the norm for most consumers, even if brands haven’t totally caught up. Spotify creates music playlists based on each consumers listening behavior on the platform. Google uses our past searches to predict what we’ll want to know next. Netflix crunches viewing data to give us options in hyper-specific genres it already knows we like, greatly reducing the burden of searching and helping ensure users can reach the content they’ll enjoy.

In other words, today’s digital users are accustomed to personalized experiences, and they are beginning to demand them from the brands they shop and do business with.

Takeaways

This time of year there’s always tremendous hype about what’s next for the industry, and we can certainly expect exciting things in 2018. While brands shouldn’t necessarily go out and invest in these technologies and changes all at once, it’s important to stay on top of industry predictions if in order to avoid getting left behind by the competition. New trends present opportunities for forward-thinking companies to get ahead of the curve.

]]>https://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/how-to-hone-digital-in-2018/feed/4Are Black Friday and Cyber Monday Still Relevant?https://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/are-black-friday-and-cyber-monday-still-relevant/
https://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/are-black-friday-and-cyber-monday-still-relevant/#commentsThu, 07 Dec 2017 16:01:58 +0000https://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/?p=25764Now that we're in the thick of the retail madness, we’ve recapped the spending habits of shoppers and what to expect for the rest of the 2017 holiday shopping season.]]>

The holiday shopping season is in full swing with only a little more than two weeks to go until Christmas day. As always, the shopping season officially kicked off on November 24th or more commonly known as Black Friday. Special deals ran through the weekend with promotions and discounts beginning on Thanksgiving night and continuing until the end of the day on Cyber Monday.

Now that we're in the thick of the retail madness, the results are in from the shopping season’s kickoff, and it was a record-breaking weekend. Below we’ve recapped the spending habits of shoppers and what to expect for the rest of the 2017 holiday shopping season;

The Numbers

This year, record online sales were posted on both Black Friday and Cyber Monday -- $5.03 billion and $6.59 billion, respectively.

Mobile commerce, in particular, made a strong showing, driving over $2 billion in sales on Cyber Monday.

Amazon had an exceptionally good day this Cyber Monday. The company announced in a press release: “Cyber Monday 2017 is now the single biggest shopping day in Amazon’s history, surpassing Prime Day 2017.” Though they didn’t release specific sales figures, the company reported that their Cyber Monday 2017 sales represented a 30% increase in sales compared to Cyber Monday 2016.

In-store traffic, however, was down 1.6% overall during the course of the weekend, according to ShopperTrak.

One trend that was clearly observable this year is the disappearing allocation between Black Friday and Cyber Monday. In the past couple of years, the lines between these holidays have become blurred. Cyber Monday started as the ecommerce response to the traditionally brick-and-mortar centric Black Friday holiday, the two sales holidays have now become nearly interchangeable with companies offering big discounts for the duration of the weekend.

Many online retailers have begun offering deals on the evening of Thanksgiving, or at midnight on Friday, as opposed to waiting until Monday to push those deals live. Some retailers run different promotions on Black Friday vs. Cyber Monday, but most run the same deals straight through the weekend. Rather than representing specific calendar days, Black Friday and Cyber Monday have come to signify an entire long weekend’s worth of deals. Some retailers have even begun referring to the occasion as “Cyber Week”.

Predictions: 2017 Shopping Season

Traditionally, Black Friday is regarded as a forerunner of sales to come, particularly in the all-important month of December. According to industry experts, the strong sales performance witnessed over the Thanksgiving weekend this year bodes well for retailers during this holiday season.

Estimates from eMarketer project that ecommerce sales will grow 16.6% this holiday season (compared to 14.3% growth from 2015 to 2016), while retail overall will grow 3.1%. What’s more, ecommerce is going to comprise an even bigger piece of the retail pie this year, accounting for a record 11.5% of all holiday sales. The growth in ecommerce will be driven in large part by increased mobile commerce sales, which is a major trend observed in 2017 as a whole. eMarketer projects that smartphone commerce overall will grow nearly 58% this year.

These predictions are in line with the larger retail trends. In November and December 2016, brick-and-mortar sales were down 8.1% and 10.6% year-over-year, respectively. In 2017 brick-and-mortar sales have also continued to see year-over-year losses so far, and the trend will likely continue into the holiday season. Compare this to ecommerce sales, which have experienced consistent growth and are projected to reach an all-time high of $450 billion by the end of 2017.

So though a strong holiday season is projected, it will be driven mostly by growth in ecommerce as opposed to in-store sales. This bodes well for online retailers but presents challenges for brick-and-mortar businesses who will need to focus on offering exceptional shopping experiences in order to remain competitive.

Future Shopping

It’s clear that ecommerce and mobile commerce are drivers of change in retail in general, and during the holiday season specifically. This is a trend that we can expect to continue in years to come as customers turn to the ease and convenience of online shopping. Voice commerce will also play a role in changing the face of retail, as 71% of Alexa users and 68% of Google Home user indicate they either would like to or already do use their device for holiday shopping (eMarketer).

Another trend is the lengthening holiday shopping season. Anyone who’s been to the mall the day after Halloween and been bombarded by Christmas music and holiday displays can probably attest to this fact. But many consumers are beginning their holiday shopping as early as October, which may have an effect on the long-term influence of a shopping holiday like Black Friday. A survey published by eMarketer notes that while 40% of respondents do the majority of their shopping after Cyber Monday, 30% of them actually shop for holiday gifts all year round.

Consumers are also becoming accustomed to expect promotions on other special days which were not traditionally shopping holidays but have lately become occasions for deep discounts. Increasingly, nearly any long weekend (Labor Day, Memorial Day, July 4th) seems justification enough to warrant a sale, particularly in the ecommerce landscape. When deals are more readily available all year round, and consumers are less likely to wait until the end of November to do their shopping, Black Friday may lose some of its allure. Given this year’s performance, though, it’s hard to imagine it becoming obsolete anytime soon.

Takeaways

Despite predictions about the demise of Black Friday, the shopping event is clearly still a draw for consumers. However, the rise of Cyber Monday and of ecommerce, in general, has meant that much of the shopping during Thanksgiving weekend is now taking place online as opposed to in-store.

The increasing availability of deals throughout the year and the lengthening of what consumers consider to be the holiday shopping season may make Black Friday less impactful in the years to come. But, for the time being, it looks like Black Friday and Cyber Monday are both still extremely relevant.

]]>https://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/are-black-friday-and-cyber-monday-still-relevant/feed/4Tuesday Technicalerts: The Future Effect of Google And Amazon Smart Home Deviceshttps://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/tuesday-technicalerts-the-future-effect-of-google-and-amazon-smart-home-devices/
https://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/tuesday-technicalerts-the-future-effect-of-google-and-amazon-smart-home-devices/#commentsTue, 05 Dec 2017 16:09:57 +0000https://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/?p=25757Serious efforts by industry leaders are being made for smart home devices to become more ubiquitous and as adoption increases, these devices will shape the future of user interaction with technology. ]]>

Anyone who keeps up with the latest developments in technology will likely be familiar with the struggle for dominance in the smart home device space. Amazon’s Echo device, which came to the market first, has managed to secure a dominant market share (roughly 70%), but Google is making strides in competition with its Google Home device. Apple is also planning to disrupt the market through its launch of the HomePod, expected to release early 2018.

Each device has offerings which play to what the respective company is best known for -- the ability to place Amazon Prime orders through the Echo, Google search and account tie-ins through Google Home, and an (alleged) exceptional home audio experience through Apple HomePod. That being said, they all do share some common traits like the ability to control other connected devices such as lights and TVs, the ability to play music and answer questions on demand, and they are all designed to reduce the user’s need to interact directly with screens.

Although Smart Home Devices are still considered as frivolous novelties by some, it’s proven that overall adoption of the products is increasing. Data published by eMarketer estimates that connected household device penetration will be 13.8% of the US population in 2018 -- up considerably from an estimated 4.8% and 10.9% in 2016 and 2017, respectively. eMarketer estimates that roughly 24.5 million connected speakers will ship in 2017.

Smart Home Devices will Become Ubiquitous

Although it’s only been a few years since the introduction of smart home devices, the available options have increased greatly. Recently, Amazon introduced the Echo Dot and Google developed the Google Home Mini, providing customers with multiple options when considering the purchase. Both of these smaller scale devices are marked at roughly $50 which provides an affordable option for consumers.

The introduction of these low-cost devices is notable because price is still one of the most significant barriers to adoption. Currently, consumers don’t consider a smart home device to be something they need in the same way they feel they need a mobile phone, TV, or computer, for example. That being said, consumers didn’t always think they needed smartphones either when the iPhone first launched, but now it’s nearly impossible for many to imagine living without one. Google and Amazon are making the assumption that if they can get their devices into consumers’ homes, they’ll soon find them necessary.

However, until consumers feel they’re really missing out on something by not owning one of these devices, they’re unlikely to shell out $100 - $300 for the more premium versions. The Echo Dot and Google Home Mini, are therefore essential entry points for many consumers, introducing them to the technology at relatively low risk and encouraging deeper overall adoption. In the lead-up to the all-important holiday season, both Amazon and Google have discounted their devices even further, meaning consumers can get their hands on one for under $30 in many cases.

Security is also another often-cited barrier to smart home device adoption. Despite assurances that the devices only listen when using their respective “wake words” (ie; “Alexa” or “OK, Google”), consumers are still uncertain whether they’re comfortable introducing technology that has the ability to listen and, at least theoretically, record everything they say, into their home environments. This concern is likely to be a temporary one though, as security standards will improve over time. Younger generations, specifically those under 44, have a much higher adoption rate for smart home devices which indicates a higher level of comfort with the technology. As more accessible price points speed adoption, security concerns will likely become secondary to the convenience offered by these devices.

Voice Is The Next Frontier

The current smart home devices on the market are just the brink of smart devices that will soon be introduced to the public. The current capabilities of these devices by no means represent the limit of what voice platforms can do, natural language processing is improving, and the AI that powers digital assistants will also become smarter and better at predicting user behavior in the coming years. Consumer comfort with voice interfaces is quickly becoming the norm. Already 20% of Google searches on mobile are done via voice search. Of smart home device owners, 16% report using their device multiple times per day, 26% report daily use, and 39% use it at least multiple times per week (eMarketer).

Connected speakers are just one piece of the puzzle, and it’s the one that will do the most in terms of introducing and acclimatizing users to voice-activated technology. The larger picture is all about the smart home, and the connected speakers are necessary for development because voice is what will make smart homes truly intelligent. The smart home would only be convenient if it can be controlled through voice commands; otherwise, it’s simply a home full of tech devices that you still need a screen to interact with. Voice interfaces allow users to interact with the internet no matter what else they happen to be doing at the moment.

Voice interfaces will likely also have far-reaching effects on commerce. If Amazon wins the connected speaker race, it will be even further cemented as the leading digital marketplace. Voice commerce has already proved effective for reordering products and for those products which have a limited number of choices available. Voice-activated devices with screens, like the Echo Show, will likely make voice commerce even more viable, as the device is able to show the user options for products where visual assessment is important.

Takeaways

Amazon, Google, and Apple are making serious efforts to bring connected speakers to the masses. Low-cost options signal the desire to get these devices into the homes of consumers in order to hasten adoption. As adoption ramps up, voice interfaces will become more ubiquitous, shaping the way we interact with the devices in our homes and changing the way we shop for products online.

Nearly everyone who works in an office is familiar with the feeling of being overwhelmed by daily tasks and internal communication demands. Most employees in modern workplaces are constantly swamped with emails, meeting requests, texts, and instant messages - even when they’re out of the office.

The result? We’ve all become expert multitaskers. The only problem is that multitasking has been shown, time and time again, to be completely ineffective. When we multitask we’re actually far less productive than when we focus all of our attention on a single task, and we make more mistakes during the course of our work. When employees spend their days flipping back and forth between email, Slack, FB Workplace, Basecamp, and whatever other project management software their organization is using, the whole business suffers.

For employees, multitasking can feel like the only way to survive in an age of technology, app, and information overload. But rather than encourage this behavior, organizations should look for ways to simplify the digital workplace. Simplification is the path to improved employee focus, productivity, and job satisfaction. Below are four ways you can help make that happen.

Streamline Solutions

The first step to simplifying the digital workplace is to streamline the solutions you have in place. At many organizations, there’s little to no oversight of all the platforms and apps that are in use at any given time. This means that the number of platforms in use, and the amount of time required to manage the information each one generates, can quickly become unmanageable.

If you think you have an information overload issue at your company, doing an inventory of all the systems and platforms that employees are required to interact with is a smart place to start. This process will help you identify redundant technologies and streamline the solutions you have in place.

Once systems with duplicate purposes have been eliminated, you should clearly establish whose role it will be to maintain oversight of all the systems in use and put in place a process for the acquisition of any new technology or solution.

Make Usability A Priority

Onboarding new software and workflows are difficult even in the best of circumstances. No matter how carefully vetted the platform or technology is, and no matter how much research has been dedicated to ensuring it’s the right fit, there will always be a certain amount of employee resistance. It’s a universal truth that most people don’t like change, even if the change in question is designed to improve the way they work.

Onboarding can become an all-out nightmare if the product you’re asking employees to adopt doesn’t have an intuitive, user-friendly interface. Usability is a key factor in determining whether or not a product becomes truly useful to your team. When usability is lacking, employees will find ways to avoid using the platform or create workarounds that render it useless. This can cause splintered communication across and within teams in your organization.

When reviewing the apps and platforms your teams currently use, consider whether any of them are under-utilized and work to get to the bottom of why this is the case. See if outdated, clunky products can be eliminated and replaced with more modern, user-friendly solutions.

Don’t Adopt Technology For Its Own Sake

If you look hard enough, you’ll discover that there is a platform or an app on the market claiming to solve practically any productivity problem a company could face. The sales pitches for these products are often very persuasive, and it’s easy to find yourself caught up believing that a new product or app is all you need to make your employees more productive or your operations more efficient.

But too often organizations are quick to adopt new technologies simply because they think that’s what they should be doing, not because they’re confident these solutions will improve operations. Adopting a new technology for its own sake is a guaranteed way to add another distraction to the workflow and force employees to juggle a greater number of information streams at any given time.

Be very cautious about the proliferation of internal systems in use at your organization. Do a thorough review to make sure each of them serves a clear, demonstrable purpose, and doesn’t simply add more work for your team.

Create A Culture Of Consciousness

Keeping the workplace apps and platforms your organization uses limited to only those that add value is key to simplifying the digital workplace, but there are some basic changes that can be made to the company culture which will also help reduce information overload.

Laptops, smartphones, and video conferencing have caused a shift in the way we work, allowing us to be connected to our offices from virtually anywhere. These technological advances have major benefits. For example, they allow companies to offer employees the ability to work from home, and they mean that even geographically distant teams can connect seamlessly.

But these same technological advances have also contributed to an “always on” corporate culture, in which employees are always working, even when they’re at home in the evening and on weekends. This type of culture can quickly lead to employee burnout and feelings of being overwhelmed by work -- both of which are ultimately disastrous for productivity.

Fortunately, there are things you can do to set a better tone and create a more productive, harmonious company culture. To accomplish this, your leadership team has to commit to recognizing efficiency and job effectiveness, as opposed to the simple volume of hours an employee puts it.

You can also help employees by freeing up more of their time to spend doing real work instead of ping-ponging emails back and forth all day. For example, you can create a policy of conscious emailing, asking employees to be conscientious about how many emails they send and who they choose to copy on each message. Similarly, you can outlaw unnecessary meetings and encourage managers to be selective about who needs to be in the meetings that are necessary.

The Takeaway

In the quest to create a more productive digital workplace, the solution is usually not in adopting more technologies, but rather in streamlining the solutions you already have in place and optimizing your systems of usability. A focus on a productive culture, as opposed to a “busy” one, will help eliminate distractions and make space for focused, meaningful work.

]]>https://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/tuesday-technicalerts-simplify-the-digital-workplace-to-avoid-information-overload/feed/3Tuesday Technicalerts: Voice Recognition, The Spark That Ignites Conversational Commerce?https://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/tuesday-technicalerts-voice-recognition-the-spark-that-ignites-conversational-commerce/
https://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/tuesday-technicalerts-voice-recognition-the-spark-that-ignites-conversational-commerce/#commentsTue, 07 Nov 2017 16:57:59 +0000https://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/?p=25739Digital technology has revolutionized the way commerce operates. We're now in the age where Conversational Commerce is becoming the norm and it's centered around Augmented Reality and Voice integrated UX.]]>

If we look at the way most of us buy products today, it is evident that we are living in the dawn of a new era of commerce. Once upon a time, our choices were limited to the products stocked in local Main Street shops. Catalog Commerce came along and If you wanted to wait 4-6 weeks, Sears, LL Bean or Woolworth could be contacted via USPS or telephone and your long wait began. Now we can buy products from nearly anyone, anytime, from wherever we or the merchant are located.

Digital technology has revolutionized the way commerce operates, but it also presents significant challenges for retailers looking to satisfy increasingly sophisticated and demanding consumers. Today, consumers are accustomed to instant gratification. The advent of messaging apps and social media means that we’re rarely forced to wait for a response to a message, even one that’s being sent halfway around the world. The likes of Amazon Prime, Walmart, and Seamless have trained consumers to expect rapid delivery, in some cases the same day.

But even as retailers have worked to provide better digital experiences most shoppers make little distinction between the online and offline experiences of the brands they shop with. Consumers already shop in an omnichannel way, even if retailers haven’t fully caught up. Here are a few examples:

Showrooming: Customers go into a store to research a product they later buy online.

As part of the Omnichannel wave, consumers demanded a breakdown of the barriers that separated the in-store and the online experience, and they’ve rewarded brands that made shopping easier and less time-consuming.

Augmented Reality Enhances Experiences

The best brands are turning to augmented reality to make their online and offline experiences more engaging and useful for consumers.

One notable example is the recent, September 2017 launch of the IKEA Place app, which uses AR to allow users to see how IKEA products will look and fit in their home. The app allows the user to choose from a catalog of IKEA products and hold their phone up to their home surroundings to see how the selected product will look in that personalized setting. Cosmetic brands are using AR to similar ends, Sephora and L’Oreal allow users to visualize how products will look on their faces.

AR can also be used in-store to enhance the shopping experience. Smart fitting rooms are rolling out globally. The mirrors in these smart fitting rooms use RFID to detect the items the user is trying on and can make recommendations about other pieces the customer may be interested in. They can also allow customers to request different sizes without interacting with a sales associate. The data collected from these interactions create shopper behavior profiles that can be used to improve the in-store experience.

Brands are working hard to design brick and mortar stores that deliver more than just the ability to shop, but the ability to experience a lifestyle. Retailers like Nike, Warby Parker, Samsung, and Anthropologie have developed flagship stores that encourage customers to linger and to experience those intangible traits that help people connect with brands on an emotional level. It’s becoming commonplace to walk into a fashion retail store and discover a cafe, a communal table, or even a barbershop.

Frictionless Experiences Take Center Stage

The rise of voice assistants and AI driven chatbots signals a move toward conversational commerce. With the Amazon Echo customers can tell Alexa to place an order for them without ever opening a screen. With Google Home, customers can use voice commands to order products from Walmart. Chatbots allow users to search for products and get recommendations without having to browse a website, letting the bot present options and place the order once a product is selected.

Apple was a pioneer of the frictionless checkout, allowing customers to purchase any item from any employee without having to wait in line to pay. This type of in-store checkout is becoming the norm. Now Amazon is leading the charge with its grocery stores where users can simply take what they need, walk out of the store, and be charged automatically for whatever they took.

Both conversational commerce and frictionless in-store checkout experiences are reducing barriers to purchase and making it easier for consumers to shop. The time-strapped consumer will naturally gravitate toward the most convenient options, and companies that offer frictionless experiences are more likely to win in the new age of commerce.

The Takeaway

Retail is evolving rapidly and brands that can adapt to the new ways of commerce will be able to thrive in the new landscape. Success requires investment in new technologies and customer convenience. For brick and mortar retailers to continue to attract consumer traffic, immersive and frictionless experiences must become the norm. Brands that can immerse themselves into consumers lives through ambient technologies such as voice (Google Home, Amazon Alexa) will be at the forefront of the next wave of Conversational Commerce.

]]>https://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/tuesday-technicalerts-voice-recognition-the-spark-that-ignites-conversational-commerce/feed/1Tuesday Technicalerts: How InVision Studio And Sketch Are Changing Screen Designhttps://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/tuesday-technicalerts-how-invision-studio-and-sketch-are-changing-screen-design/
https://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/tuesday-technicalerts-how-invision-studio-and-sketch-are-changing-screen-design/#commentsTue, 31 Oct 2017 15:16:32 +0000https://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/?p=25727Typically designers are at the mercy of Adobe in terms of mobile app & website design, but inVision & Sketch are breaking the mold with their digital design toolkit created specifically for screen designers. ]]>

It used to be the case that if you wanted to design a website or mobile app, you were at the mercy of Adobe, whose Photoshop and Illustrator tools were the only options for serious designers. But, as all designers well know, these products have their limitations. Photoshop, notably, was designed for photo editing first and evolved over time to become a screen design tool, with features added on top of the existing framework. Designers often complained of how bloated and clunky Adobe’s tools were.

And then along came Sketch, a digital design toolkit created specifically to meet the needs of screen designers. For designers, Sketch was a welcome change from the Adobe Creative Cloud, and the low price point didn’t hurt either. Sketch eventually partnered with InVision, a collaborative prototyping tool. The partnership allows designers to add animations to designs created with Sketch and receive feedback in real time.

Never one to be left behind, in 2016 Adobe launched Adobe XD, a user experience design tool that allows users to design and animate prototypes. Now InVision has upped the ante even further with the announcement of what the company calls “the world’s most powerful screen design tool” -- InVision Studio.

As mentioned earlier, InVision began as a prototyping tool that made it easy for teams to collaborate and give feedback on designs. It made client and stakeholder presentations easier because working demos could be put together quickly and shared easily. But InVision didn’t have a native design tool, so it seems natural that the logical next step would be to create one, bringing the entire design and prototyping process under one roof.

Some key features of InVision’s new tool, which is currently in beta with a full launch slated for January 2018, include:

Design plus prototyping

InVision Studio will allow designers to create and animate layouts all within one ecosystem, where previously these processes had been fractured, necessitating the use of many different tools. This more unified, harmonious experience should save designers time and frustration. According to the InVision Studio website: “Intuitive, frictionless rapid prototyping and advanced animation help you unlock new dimensions of screen design.”

Responsive design

Designing for multiple screen resolutions is part of every designer’s job, but it can be a time-consuming task, to say the least. InVision Studio makes responsive design a core tenet of the software. The tool makes the task of designing for multiple devices much simpler -- to adjust the size of a layout the user can simply click and drag to make adjustments automatically.

Collaboration

As with InVision’s original offering, collaboration is a major selling point of Studio. The platform allows stakeholders and team members to comment and offer feedback on designs within the tool itself, eliminating the need for endless back and forth on design edits.

App Ecosystem

InVision Studio will allow users to develop their own apps for the platform, creating add-ons and kits that Studio users can find in an InVision app store.

The Run Down

Both InVision and Sketch were created as responses to the lack of good options for screen designers. InVision filled a hole in the market by allowing designers to create quick prototypes from their designs. Sketch became a worthy Adobe challenger by honing in on the features that mattered most to screen designers and designing a more user-friendly platform.

With the launch of Studio, InVision becomes a standalone Adobe competitor, with capabilities that match those of Adobe XD. InVision is also now competing directly with Sketch, which has a devoted user base. It remains to be seen if the platform will be able to convert users from Sketch or Adobe XD, but it does present an enticing alternative. Notably, InVision Studio will be available for Windows and Mac while Sketch remains exclusive to Mac, so it may be successful in wooing Windows-based designers looking for an Adobe alternative.

The advent of Sketch and InVision Studio have helped democratize the design tool landscape. Both platforms are focused on the needs of today’s digital designer, which is a refreshing change from legacy Adobe tools. Their rise signals a demand for simpler, more effective tools that free up design time to be used in ideation and creation rather than the more menial aspects of pixel pushing.

Increased competition among screen design tools is a positive trend for designers. This competition forces the creators of each tool to work harder at satisfying users by providing the best possible product at a fair price. The success of Sketch and the advent of InVision Studio both demonstrate that the future of design tools is one where a holistic approach to user experience design is the one that wins.

]]>https://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/tuesday-technicalerts-how-invision-studio-and-sketch-are-changing-screen-design/feed/1Tuesday Technicalerts: The IoT And Business, Connected Devices Aren’t Just For Homehttps://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/tuesday-technicalerts-the-iot-and-business-connected-devices-arent-just-for-home/
https://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/tuesday-technicalerts-the-iot-and-business-connected-devices-arent-just-for-home/#commentsTue, 24 Oct 2017 17:47:59 +0000https://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/?p=25707Connected devices will change the way most of us interact with the objects in our homes over the next few years, but the IoT has major implications for the business world as well.]]>

Much of the chatter around the phenomenon that is the Internet of Things (IoT) focuses on how these connected devices can improve the lives of consumers. And while it’s true that connected devices will change the way most of us interact with the objects in our homes over the next few years, it’s also true that the IoT has major implications for the business world as well.

Estimates of the number of connected device shipments demonstrate that the IoT is a force to be reckoned with. Gartner estimates that 8.4 billion connected “things” will be in use in 2017 and that by 2020 this number will be over 20 billion. These connected things include everything from thermostats, refrigerators, and toasters, to plane engines, streetlights, and cars.

There’s no denying that the connected device boom will change the way we live, but it will change the way we work as well. The IoT has implications for businesses across all industries, and when the power of the technology is properly harnessed and deployed it can benefit business operations in meaningful ways. Below are a few ways businesses can use the IoT now and in the future to worker smarter and more efficiently.

Quicker data analysis

The Internet of Things has major implications for the ways companies do data analysis. For one thing, the IoT actually contributes to the amount of data that’s being collected. The more devices users have that are connected to the internet, the more data companies will have access to about behavior during different activities or with different devices.

More data is great in theory, but in practice, it can be difficult to parse, and data that can’t be easily understood or analyzed is effectively meaningless. This is where connected devices can be useful to businesses. Not only do consumer devices create data on consumer behavior, but in the future connected devices can also be used to allow businesses to access and interpret the data that’s meaningful to them. Advancements in AI will also mean that over time devices can learn what data and reports are important and automatically provide updates.

Improving customer experience

More data and a better understanding of its implications will result in the ability to offer better experiences to customers. Connected devices give companies a wealth of information about how certain products are being used, meaning that more opportunities exist than ever before to make strategic improvements based on observable, measurable user data. Connected devices can also help companies identify problems as they arise in real-time, presenting opportunities to enhance customer service.

Offering more personalized experiences to consumers is a major marketing goal for many businesses, but it has also proven to be a difficult one to meet. Connected devices can help companies meet the challenge of providing more personalized messaging and brand experiences to consumers because the sheer wealth of data collected will give them better insight into each individual user and his or her specific needs.

Managing operations

Another area where the IoT has the potential to have major implications for business is in managing operations. Connected devices will change the way warehouses and factories are run, leading businesses to rely less on data that is gathered and managed manually by warehouse and factory employees. Instead, data can be automatically collected and accessed and managed from a distance. Connected devices put to work in warehouse and factory settings can help speed up processes, give real-time insight into inventory, and reduce labor costs for businesses.

Connected machinery

Smart machines, equipped with sensors that give managers visibility into what’s happening with equipment and machinery even when they aren’t physically present on a factory floor, can help businesses work faster and smarter, reducing delays and keeping costs in check. Sensors attached to machinery can alert managers to a mechanical issue before it causes a catastrophic malfunction which results in lost time and profits.

Connected machines can give businesses useful insights into where processes are breaking down, and which tasks or jobs cause holdups. This information can be used to improve operations and streamline manufacturing processes, helping get products to market faster with fewer issues.

Smart offices

Just as the IoT has the potential to make our homes far smarter than they’ve ever been before, by regulating temperatures automatically based on our preferences, managing groceries by inventorying the contents of our refrigerators, and making it possible to order virtually anything we need with a simple voice command, connected devices will also allow us to manage offices and workplaces more efficiently.

The IoT will enable businesses to streamline the operations of their offices, improving efficiency and reducing costs. For example, office climate and electricity use could be managed from a single location. Smart lights and blinds can be deployed to reduce waste and capitalize on natural light.

Our Future With The IoT

It’s clear that the Internet of Things is going to have implications for the way we live, both at home and at work. Connected devices have the power to improve more than just the efficiency of our homes, though. The IoT will change the ways cities are run, improve the safety of our planes, trains, and automobiles, and even optimize our health and medical care. The IoT is positioned to act as a revolutionary force in business as well, giving companies greater visibility into product performance, consumer behavior, and relevant company data.